Understanding how the 3 Prophet Records operate can be a big help in deciding how to customize your software.

Contact: This is an Outlook Contact Record that Prophet borrows for data about INDIVIDUALS.

While no customization can be made to the general fields, Prophet does provide 20 fields that can be customized as date fields, text fields, and drop-down menu fields.

Company: This in an exclusively Prophet generated record that allows for the collection of data at the company/organization level.

The fields in the General tab are not customizable.

The Details tab has one field for customizing - the Account Level field.

There are three User Tabs containing 72 fields per tab that can be customized as date fields, text fields, and drop-down menu fields. You can also rename each tab to identify what sort of information is contained in each tab, such as Marketing, Account Information, Pre-Sales Data, etc.

*For the Contact and Company custom fields, it is typically a good idea to keep it to fairly static information, such as Industry for the Company or Birthday for the Contact.

Opportunity: This is the other exclusively Prophet record that allows the user to create a ‘Sales’ record. This record has a wide range of customizable fields over the General Tab, Products/Services Tab, and the 3 User Tabs that allow for customizing the record to YOUR business processes.

Customizable Fields (General Tab)

All the labels (e.g. Status, Stage, Priority, Service Type, etc.) on this tab are customizable.

The drops down values associated with the labels are customizable – you can edit or delete existing values and you can add additional drop down values as well.

You can any of the fields to be required before an Opportunity is saved.

When customizing the Status dropdown, there are a couple things to keep in mind. Some of the standard reports that are included in Prophet gather data for reporting from these dropdown values.

The standard values in this dropdown to be careful of when customizing:

ActivePipeline forecast category reports will report on all opportunities marked with the status Active. If you are going to change this field, make sure you change this value to something that means the same thing as active, such as “open” or “prospect.”

WonReports in the Account Sales category report off of all opportunities marked with the status of Won. If you are going to change this value, make sure you change this label to a term that means the same thing, such as “Closed”. The date you move an opportunity to the Status of won, Prophet marks that date as the closed date for reporting.

LostReports in the Won/Loss category report off of all opportunities marked with the status of Lost. If you are going to change this value, make sure you change the label to a term that means something similar to lost, such as “Rejected.” The date you move an opportunity to the Sales Status of Lost, Prophet marks that date as the closed date for reporting.

Customizable Fields (User Tabs)

User Tab 1, User Tab 2, User Tab 3

There are 28 labels on each tab that can be customized.

The fields associated with the labels can be either a text field, drop down list or a date field.

Rename each tab name (e.g. Contract Info as shown below).

Hide the fields you aren’t using.

The information you are gathering on the user tabs can be pulled into Prophet Reports through the Report Wizard.

Customizable Fields (Products/Services Tab)

The six label names that can be renamed include:

Group

Product/Service

Prod Description

Default Quantity

Price

User Defined

They appear in the product/services window as shown below.

When entering in your products/services, you will first categorize them by the “Group,” such as Software Products, Clothing, Accessories, Ford Cars, Chevrolet Cars, etc.

Then, in the “Product/Service” section, you will list each specific item along with pricing, a description, etc.

If you’d like to have a more in depth conversation with a trainer on your specific business needs, consult with your Account Manager to learn what training options you have currently available to you.

Prophet’s Contact Manager acts as the central location for all users’ contacts. As you know, Prophet syncs with Outlook contacts and one of your first steps when setting up Prophet is to register Prophet with an Outlook contact folder. This could be local contact folders, which everyone using Outlook has.

Or you might be syncing Prophet with a public contact folder – one that is accessible by all users in Outlook within the Public Folder section. This is only available if you have Microsoft Exchange or SharePoint.

Since Prophet displays the contacts that are located in the Outlook contact folders that have been registered with Prophet, the most common reason for duplicate contacts is that the same contact exists within more than one Outlook contact folder.

In this example, Prophet has been synced with this public folder (note the highlighted contact, John Haden).

And it has also been synced with another user’s local contact folder.

You will then see all contacts from each of these folders in Prophet and notice John Haden in there twice.

When looking at the contacts in Contact Manager, you can verify which user is assigned to each.

If each of the duplicate contacts have different “Users” assigned, the source of the duplicates was a user that registered a different contact folder that contained “duplicate” contact data.

If that is the case, then there is no error in Prophet. Prophet is just displaying the contacts that are in multiple Outlook contact folders.

To resolve this issue, you can:

Sync Prophet with only one public contact folder from Outlook. This is only possible if you have Microsoft Exchange or SharePoint.

Once you have established one public contact folder to be used with Prophet, have each user move their contacts from their local contact folder into the public contact folder.

Next, each user will need to clear their Contact Manager – go to Tools>Resync Data>Clear Contact Data. There you will select all folders to be cleared from Prophet (check-mark anything that could have been registered with Prophet). Select Contacts and Companies (you may experience some data loss in the company notes, so if you need assistance, please contact support) then you can click OK to complete the Clear.

Then you will need to adjust your view in Contact Manager and register the new public folder with Prophet.Then you will need to adjust your view in Contact Manager and register the new public folder with Prophet.

If the cleared contact folders still appear in the Contact Selection area (see below in green), then highlight those and click the Exclude button.

Click Add to add/register the new contact folder with Prophet. Highlight the new folder name and then click OK.

Next, each user must change their working contact folder to match the new public folder that was just registered with Prophet. When you create new contacts in Prophet, the working contact folder is the Outlook folder those contacts are saved in. To do this, go to Tools>Prophet Administrator>Working Contact Folder.

If you don’t have Microsoft Exchange or SharePoint and therefore cannot house all contacts in a public folder, you will need to communicate with the other users when duplicate contacts arise.

Determine which user will keep the master. Make sure the details (address, phone numbers, notes, etc.) from the “duplicates” are copied and pasted into the record determined to be the master so that record has all pertinent information. Then delete the “duplicates” from Prophet (this will in turn delete them from Outlook as well).

If the master contact was not contained in your local contact folder, the next time you attempt to open it from Prophet you will receive a message “Contact Doesn’t Exist, Do You Want to Create It?” Click YES. This will then create that contact in your local Outlook folder and allow you to view and edit the details.

First, check with your Prophet administrator to verify that the user permissions have been setup so that you can view the data of other users. Your administrator will need to log onto the Prophet Administrative website and in the User Management section, first check the Hierarchy View Access to ensure your hierarchy access was set to “Peers” or “Peers and Manager.”

If you are trying to see the data of a user or users in another department, also check the Cross Department Access section to ensure you were given either Read-Only access or Read-Write access to the data of the other department.

Next, verify that the views in Prophet are set to see each other’s data as opposed to just the data that is assigned to you.

In Contact or Company Manager, in the Contact/Company selection area, choose to select contacts/companies by User Assignment(s), and then select records that are either visible to you, assigned to specific users (after selecting this option you can then add each user whose data you want to view), or select all contacts/companies.

Similarly, in Opportunity Manager, select records that are either visible to you, assigned to specific users, or all records for your department.

If you are looking to view the opportunities for a department different than the one you are assigned to, create a view to include the records from multiple departments.

Once you have selected the departments to include in your view, once again select records that are either visible to you, assigned to specific users, or all records for that department.

If your contacts are already in Outlook, you will simply need to adjust your view within the Contact and Company Managers to tell Prophet which contact folder you want it to sync with.

To do this, in Contact Manager and Company Manager, go to the drop-down next to the view, select Tools and then select Create New.

My recommendation is to create a new view and call this “All Contacts” to reflect that this view will show all of your contacts. You can always set specific filters later, such as contacts in a specific location, category, etc.

After clicking Create New, the Contact or Company View Options dialogue will open up. This is where you name your view.

First enter a name for your view and add a description if you’d like. A table grid allows for the selection of sortable and filterable columns, where a simple list will just show contact or company names.

You will first want to select the Contact Folder(s) option to register your Outlook contact folder with Prophet.

If the contact folder you want to sync Prophet with is not listed there, click the Add button and then select the proper folder.

This will either be your local contact folder or a public folder if you are using Microsoft Exchange or SharePoint.

For Contact Selection by User Assignment(s), this will show the contacts that have been synced with Prophet, including the ones in the contact folder you have synced with Prophet, as well as any other contact folder that has been synced with Prophet.

You can select to view all contacts that have been assigned to you – those that you have created or those that someone else created but then assigned you as a user.

You can select all contacts that are visible to you – those that are assigned to you or other users whose data you have permissions to view.

The most common reason for duplicate company information in prophet is the company name is represented differently across several records (spelling, punctuation, capitalization). For example, if four company records are imported into Prophet with the following company names, TH Enterprises, T-H Enterprises, th-enterprises, they will be treated as THREE separate companies, even though all three names represent one company.

Take the example below – Ashburg Finance is in Prophet four times, though the wording is slightly different each time.

In order to consolidate these records into one company record, you must edit each CONTACT record to reflect one consistent company name, including spelling and punctuation.

In this case, we will merge all contacts into the company Ashburg Finance LLC. Open each contact record and change the spelling of the company name.

Now all contacts will be merged together in one company record, see below.

First, check with your Prophet administrator to verify that the user permissions have been setup so that you can view the data of other users. Your administrator will need to log onto the Prophet Administrative website and in the User Management section, first check the Hierarchy View Access to ensure your hierarchy access was set to “Peers” or “Peers and Manager.”

If you are trying to see the data of a user or users in another department, also check the Cross Department Access section to ensure you were given either Read-Only access or Read-Write access to the data of the other department.

Next, verify that the views in Prophet are set to see each other’s data as opposed to just the data that is assigned to you.

In Contact or Company Manager, in the Contact/Company selection area, choose to select contacts/companies by User Assignment(s), and then select records that are either visible to you, assigned to specific users (after selecting this option you can then add each user whose data you want to view), or select all contacts/companies.

Similarly, in Opportunity Manager, select records that are either visible to you, assigned to specific users, or all records for your department.

If you are looking to view the opportunities for a department different than the one you are assigned to, create a view to include the records from multiple departments.

Once you have selected the departments to include in your view, once again select records that are either visible to you, assigned to specific users, or all records for that department.

If your contacts are already in Outlook, you will simply need to adjust your view within the Contact and Company Managers to tell Prophet which contact folder you want it to sync with.

To do this, in Contact Manager and Company Manager, go to the drop-down next to the view, select Tools and then select Create New.

My recommendation is to create a new view and call this “All Contacts” to reflect that this view will show all of your contacts. You can always set specific filters later, such as contacts in a specific location, category, etc.

After clicking Create New, the Contact or Company View Options dialogue will open up. This is where you name your view.

First enter a name for your view and add a description if you’d like.

A table grid allows for the selection of sortable and filterable columns, where a simple list will just show contact or company names.

You will first want to select the Contact Folder(s) option to register your Outlook contact folder with Prophet.

If the contact folder you want to sync Prophet with is not listed there, click the Add button and then select the proper folder.

This will either be your local contact folder or a public folder if you are using Microsoft Exchange or SharePoint.

For Contact Selection by User Assignment(s), this will show the contacts that have been synced with Prophet, including the ones in the contact folder you have synced with Prophet, as well as any other contact folder that has been synced with Prophet.

You can select to view all contacts that have been assigned to you – those that you have created or those that someone else created but then assigned you as a user.

You can select all contacts that are visible to you – those that are assigned to you or other users whose data you have permissions to view.

First, check with your Prophet administrator to verify that the user permissions have been setup so that you can view the data of other users. Your administrator will need to log onto the Prophet Administrative website and in the User Management section, first check the Hierarchy View Access to ensure your hierarchy access was set to “Peers” or “Peers and Manager.”

If you are trying to see the data of a user or users in another department, also check the Cross Department Access section to ensure you were given either Read-Only access or Read-Write access to the data of the other department.

Next, verify that the views in Prophet are set to see each other’s data as opposed to just the data that is assigned to you.

In Contact or Company Manager, in the Contact/Company selection area, choose to select contacts/companies by User Assignment(s), and then select records that are either visible to you, assigned to specific users (after selecting this option you can then add each user whose data you want to view), or select all contacts/companies.

Similarly, in Opportunity Manager, select records that are either visible to you, assigned to specific users, or all records for your department.

If you are looking to view the opportunities for a department different than the one you are assigned to, create a view to include the records from multiple departments.

Once you have selected the departments to include in your view, once again select records that are either visible to you, assigned to specific users, or all records for that department.

In the Emails tab of the Opportunity window, first click the Refresh button to refresh your folder list.

Then, make sure that your Outlook folders are selected in the Emails tab and click Search. Prophet searches in all folders selected for the linked items.

Once you set this for one Opportunity, you will not need to set this again for other Opportunities once you hit save and close.

Your email will now appear in the Emails tab. The folder it refers to is the folder in Outlook where the email resides. If you happen to move the email to another folder within Outlook, the folder name will be updated in Prophet automatically. If you permanently delete the email, it will no longer appear in Prophet.

In the Emails tab of the Opportunity window, first click the Refresh button to refresh your folder list.

Then, make sure that your Outlook folders are selected in the Emails tab and click Search. Prophet searches in all folders selected for the linked items.

Once you set this for one Opportunity, you will not need to set this again for other Opportunities once you hit save and close.

Your email will now appear in the Emails tab. The folder it refers to is the folder in Outlook where the email resides. If you happen to move the email to another folder within Outlook, the folder name will be updated in Prophet automatically. If you permanently delete the email, it will no longer appear in Prophet.

For any Outlook categories that you create, you must have the other users add those into their Master Category List in Outlook in order to share those between multiple users.

The easiest way to do this is to create a “dummy” contact in Prophet and assign ALL categories to this contact. The reason behind this is so other users can easily open the “dummy” contact and add all categories into their master list.

To do this, follow the steps below.

Create a "dummy" contact with the name "Contact Category"

Put "Company Category" in the Company field (or you can leave this blank)

Click on Categorize and select ALL CATEGORIES

Select all categories/create all categories that you want to share

Save and close contact

The other user(s) will then...

Open up “Contact Category” contact.

Click on Categorize and select ALL CATEGORIES.

All categories from another user will appear there in white and say “Not in Master Category List” in parenthesis next to the category.

To add these categories into their master list, highlight a white category and click on NEW.

Hit OK (this will auto assign a color, but color matching is unnecessary).

Repeat for all categories and make sure all are selected. Add any that are needed.

If you have Prophet on Demand, you can log into http://www.prophetondemand.com/prophet/mobile/ from your phone or tablet’s browser and log in with your password and email address. This will lead you to a mobile optimized web sited that will allow you to update your Prophet records.

If you are using Prophet on Premise there are additional steps that need to take place to make this functional. During Installation three sites are set up in IIS. These sites need to either be published or port forwarding needs to be established to make those pages available for use outside the internal network. None of these pages can be accessed without a registered email and password so they are quite safe. Prophet does not provide support for setting this up, however, so you would need an IT person to set this up for you.

Prophet Mobile Web is a web-based application that can be used on most smartphones, including the iPhone, as well as iPads, and any PC that has Internet Browser capabilities and an internet connection.

Here’s what you can do with Prophet Mobile Web:

Quickly locate, call or email a Prophet Contact

Create new Opportunities

Edit existing Opportunities

Review existing notes or add new ones

Use your mobile device or iPad to stay up to date with your sales pipeline

You will then see this page which is broken out by Contacts, Companies, and Opportunities.

Contact Records

In order to access your Contacts in Prophet Mobile, click on Contact Records from the home screen (above). This will load the Contacts view.

From here you can Search for a Contact, Create a New Contact, or Open a Contact by clicking on the contact’s name.

Upon opening the contact, you can add contact notes, edit the contact’s general information, as well as send an email or make a call from your mobile device (see below).

Search for a Contact

In the Search field (circled in red below), type in all or part of the name of the Contact that you are looking for. Click Go.

The Contact you are searching for will be displayed.

Create a New Contact

Click the New Contact button (circled in red below).

A new, blank Contact form will appear. Fill out the data for this Contact (see below).

Clicking on an email address will open your Mobile device’s email software.

Clicking on a web page will open your Mobile device’s browser to the selected website.

When all of the appropriate data is entered, click the Save button.

Click the Close button to return to the Contacts view.

Contacts added via Prophet Mobile will immediately be added to the server and will be searchable to other users in Contact Manager.

Upon trying to open the contact in Contact Manager in Outlook, you will receive this message:

Click Yes and the contact will be added to your Working Contact Folder in Outlook.

When you create a contact via Prophet Mobile, the company associated with the contact is added to Prophet automatically. Along with the company name, the address, phone number, website, fax, etc. entered for the contact will automatically be added to the company record. If the company already exists in Prophet, the new contact will be added to the existing company record (as long as the spelling is exactly the same).

In order to access your Companies in Prophet Mobile, click on Company Records from the home screen.

This will load the Companies view. From here you can Search for a Company, Create a New Company, Add Notes to a Company, Edit Existing Companies, and View the Contacts Associated to a Company.

When you create a contact via Prophet Mobile, the company associated with the contact is added to Prophet automatically. Along with the company name, the address, phone number, website, fax, etc. entered for the contact will automatically be added to the company record. If the company already exists in Prophet, the new contact will be added to the existing company record (as long as the spelling is exactly the same).

With your Mobile Device:

Open the Company by clicking on its entry in the Name column.

Call the Company by clicking on its entry in the Phone column.

Search for a Company

In the Search field, type in all or part of the name of the Company that you are looking for.

Click Go.

The Company you are searching for will be displayed.

Create a New Company

Click the New Company button (shown below).

A new, blank Company form will appear. Fill out the data for this contact. Note that email addresses and web pages will function as ‘live’ links:

Clicking on an email address will open your Mobile device’s email software.

Clicking on a webpage will open your Mobile device’s browser to the selected website.

When all of the appropriate data is entered, click the Save button.

Click the Close button to return to the Companies view.

If the company name already exists in Prophet (exact spelling is necessary), you will receive this message:

Edit a Company Record

Open the Company you wish to edit or add notes to.

Click the Edit button (shown below).

Type the note into the Add Note field (shown below).

Click the Add button. The note will be added to the Existing Notes field.

Edit any additional information to update address, phone, etc.

Click Save.

NOTE: All notes are stamped with the Date, Time, Time Zone, and Modified By information.

View the Contacts Associated to a Company

Open the Company whose Contacts you wish to view.

Click the Contacts button (shown below).

The Company Contacts view will load, showing all of the Contacts associated to the selected Company.

With your Mobile Device:

Open the Contact by clicking on its entry in the Name column.

Send an email to the Contact by clicking on its entry in the Email column.

Call the Contact by clicking on its entry in the Phone column.

Companies added via Prophet Mobile will immediately be added to the server and will be searchable to other users in Contact Manager.

Prophet Mobile Does Not:

Allow you to add a new contact from within the company (you would need to do that from the contact section)

Allow you to delete companies from Prophet

Allow you to search the Activities tab

Allow you to attach files to the company

Allow you to assign Sales Automation actions to the company contacts

Allow you to track data in Company Manager’s user tabs (custom tabs)

Allow you to add/view Parent-Child relationships

Allow you to categorize companies

Allow you to follow companies using Prophet Instant

Allow you to set follow-up appointments or tasks

Allow you to flag companies as accounts

Opportunity Records

In order to access your Opportunities in Prophet Mobile, click on Records from the home screen.

This will load the Opportunities view. From here you can Search for an Opportunity, Filter Opportunities by the Status and Stage, Create a New Opportunity, and Edit an Existing Opportunity.

Search for an Opportunity

In the Search field, type in all or part of the name of the Company, Contact or Description of the Opportunity that you are looking for.

Click Go.

The Opportunities you are searching for will be displayed.

Filter Opportunities by the Status and Sales Stage

Click the drop-down arrow next to the Status or Stage fields.

Select the Status and/or Stage of the Opportunities you wish to view.

Click the Go button.

The Opportunities that are in the same Stage and/or Status that were selected will be displayed.

Create a New Opportunity

Click the New Opportunity button (see below). A new, blank Opportunity form will appear.

Associate the Opportunity to a Company or Contact.

To Associate a Company to the Opportunity

Click the Company button.

Select any Companies that you want to associate, and click Save.

To Associate a Contact to the Opportunity

Click the Contact button.

Select any Contacts that you want to associate, and click Save.

After selecting a contact for the opportunity, Prophet Mobile will not automatically associate all contacts within that company. You have to add contacts separately, and vice versa.

Fill out Data in the Opportunity

Fill out the data for this Opportunity, making sure to put entries into any required fields.

Click the Save button when you have entered all of the data for that Opportunity Tab.

Note: Each Opportunity is comprised of several Opportunity tabs: General, Products/Services, Contacts, Company, and Notes.

Different Opportunity tabs can be selected by scrolling between them using the ‘Scroll Left’ and ‘Scroll Right’ buttons (see below).

Click the Close button to return to the Opportunities view.

Change the Company and/or Contacts Associated to the Opportunity

Click the Company or Contact button

Select any Company that you want to associate/replace, or select any contact you wish to add, and click Save.

Edit an Existing Opportunity

Open the Opportunity that you wish to edit.

Click the Edit button.

Use the Scroll Left and Scroll Right buttons to select which tab you want to edit/view (General, Products/Services, Contacts, Company, and Notes).

Add, edit or delete whatever information you would like to change.

Click Save.

Send an Email from the Opportunity

Click the Contacts tab at the bottom of the opportunity.

Click the contact’s email address and an email open.

Place a Call from the Opportunity

Click the Contacts tab at the bottom of the opportunity.

Click the contact’s phone number and the contact’s number will appear in your dialer.

Opportunities added via Prophet Mobile will immediately be added to the server and will be searchable to other users in Opportunity Manager.

Prophet Mobile Does Not:

Allow you to add a new contact from within the opportunity (you would need to do that from the contact section)

Allow you to delete opportunities from Prophet

Allow you to attach or view files within the opportunity

Allow you to process Workflow actions

Allow you to view or track data in any other opportunity tab except General, Products/Services, Contacts, Company, and Notes

Allow you to link emails (even those sent from the opportunity in Prophet Mobile) to the opportunity

Our Report Wizard walks you through the process of selecting the query criteria for a new report and selecting the fields you wish to include in your new report. You can also edit an existing report to alter these criteria once the report is create by selecting a report and clicking the “Edit” button. The Report Designer allows you to customize the display format of the report.

Some helpful tips you should know regarding custom reports:

If you are reporting primarily on opportunity data, select a report category of “Opportunity.”

A very popular report is the sales activity report, which shows all sales related activities associated with each opportunity. A canned version of this report is found under the report category of “Pipeline Forecast.”

NOTE: Once you edit a report and change the underlying query criteria and/or fields, you will LOSE any edits you made to the format of the report in the Report Designer. Therefore, it is very important to get your criteria set correctly before customizing the output format of the report.

Steps to Create a Custom Report

In the Report Manager, click on the Wizard button to launch the New Report Wizard Step 1 of 3 dialog.

Select a Report Category from the drop-down list. Each category will give you a different type of report.

Account Sales – Generates reports on Opportunities with the Sales Status of Won.

Company - Generates reports on your company records.

Contacts – Generates reports on your contact records.

Opportunity – Reports on all Opportunities (Opportunities with any Sales Status).

Pipeline Forecast – Generates reports on Opportunities with the Sales Status of Active.

Won Loss – Generates reports on Opportunities with the Sales Status of Won or Lost.

View the Report Wizard Available Fields section attached for a detailed list of all fields available in each category.

Select the department you will be reporting on. If you are only using one department in Prophet, select that department.

Enter a report name, which must be unique.

Clicking Next will open the New Report Wizard Step 2 of 3 dialog.

Enter a report title. This can be the same as the name of the report entered in the previous step or different.

Select the data fields that you’d like to include in your report. To add them, either double-click the data fields of your choice, or highlight each and use the right-pointing arrow to add them to the Report Fields window.

The order the fields appear in the Report Fields window determines the placement from left to right on your report. Reorder the fields by highlighting a field and moving it with the up or down arrows.

You can view the layout of the report by clicking the Preview button. A Preview Report window opens and it can be enlarged to view the layout of your report.

Close the Preview window, and make any modifications to the report by adding or deleting report fields or changing the report title on Step 2 of 3, or click Back to change the report name or category in Step 1 or 3.

If you are satisfied, click Next to open Step 3 of 3.

Some report categories have fields that can be summed (i.e. Sales Revenue and Recur/Other Revenue); if you have included either of those fields in your report, you can select one or both field(s) and move them with the arrow to the Summary Fields window.

You can still go back to previous Steps and modify your report, or click Finish.

A dialog will ask if you want to open your report in the Designer for additional modifications.

Typically we suggest you say No to this as it’s not necessary at this time and can always be done later.

You have now created a report template and it will be available to run. To view your report

From the Choose Report Category drop down, choose the category that you created the report in.

Highlight the report name.

Apply any filters or sorts.

Choose your report format (basic or excel).

Click View Report.

NOTE: Should you select Preview Report, only a small snapshot of your report will be exported. To ensure all data is presented, always click VIEW Report.

To modify the layout of the basic format reports, you will use the Report Designer.

The main purpose of the Report Designer is to be able to change the layout and the header titles on your report. In the PDF view of the report specifically, it is used for making more room for the data to spread out in the column width. Please refer to the attached document for detailed instructions on the Report Designer.

The most common cause of blank reports is that selection criteria for the report have been set too narrow for Prophet to find data that matches all the criteria set.

A good practice is to start with a wide data set with very few criteria, and run the report to make sure it is extracting data as you would anticipate. Then narrow the selection criteria as needed. When no data is presented, often times the date range is set too narrow or a particular filter eliminates the data you are actually searching for.

To verify what filters are in place, refer to the Sort Parameters and Filters section of the Report Manager.

Look within each tab (Date, Accounts, Revenue, and Criteria) to see which filters have been set.

Is the data range possibly filtering out the data you want?

Are you only filtering on specific contacts or companies?

Is the revenue range too specific?

Is there another criterion that was set?

Perhaps there are several filters in place and your data does not meet ALL filters set.

Start with no filters and then slowly add filters to ensure you don’t end up filtering out ALL the data.

In order to calculate the closing ration of your sales, you need to combine the output from two separate reports. Towards the end of the reporting period, run a pipeline report to get a snapshot of Opportunities’ revenue and status at that point. Once the reporting period closes, run the Won/Loss report to report on how many of those deals were closed successful. You can then combine the reports in Excel and create a formula to calculate the closing percentage.

Another option is to set a quota for your Reps in the User Management section of the Prophet Administrator page. Then you can run a report under Account Sales to calculate how the reps are performing to that quota.

As long as notes are tracked in the Prophet Opportunity window, you can create an Activity Report that will filter by the preferred date and time. To filter by a date range of the time stamps for the notes, include the field “NoteDateTime” in the selection criteria while choosing fields in the report wizard.

Then, to filter by the date range, click on the Date tab of the Sort Parameters and Filters section. You can filter by a preset period of days (15, 30, 60, 90, etc.) or choose your own date range.

If notes are tracked in the Contact Manager, you can view those notes, but cannot filter by a date range.

Prophet stores the last access time by user activity for the following four functions:

Viewed Contact List

Viewed Company List

Viewed Opportunity List

Viewed Prophet Today Dashboard data

This data a can be retrieved by the Administrator via the admin portal under "Usage Reports."

The frequency of these interactions can be derived from the SQL database via a query

select * from [dbo].[VW_ActivityAudit]

Here is an example:

The hit count tells you how many times the user has performed the action. For example, since starting on my current database, Eric has viewed the contact list 423 times. The time shown is in UTC, so it was last loaded on 2/28 at 5:40pm.

The Prophet Import Export Wizard allows you to import data from Microsoft Excel into Prophet to create Contacts, Companies and Opportunities. It is important to know that you must use Prophet’s template (described in more detail below) as it is pre-mapped to the fields within Prophet.

Template and Field Format

Fixed Fields:

Column names for fields 1-54 and order cannot be changed – they are hardcoded.

Columns 1-23 apply to contact

Columns 24-40 apply to company

Columns 41-54 apply to opportunities

Custom Fields:

Columns 55+ are customizable and may be deleted.

Each field title has an embedded identifier that must remain intact, although the other text around the identifier can change.

Template Rules

Account Reps:

Account Rep specified in the template must be an EXACT match of the Account Rep specified in Prophet. If not, the record will fail. Account Rep should be initially input into Prophet “firstname lastname” with no comma and only one space separating first and last name.

Multiple reps are assigned to an opportunity contact by inserting a comma between the names of the account reps.

The Account Rep specified on the line of the import template will be assigned to the Contact, Company, and/or Opportunity also specified on that line.

All items should have an assigned Account Rep. Items without an assigned Account rep will not show up in Mobile Users.

Date Values:

Date values in Excel must be converted to text – otherwise they will import in a numeric from (days since 1/1/1900).

You can convert to text using the following formula: =IF(ISBLANK(RC[-1]),"",TEXT(RC[-1],"mm/dd/yyyy"))

Drop Down List Values:

Spaces before or after a drop down value may be problematic. Fixed in release 6.0.354 and later.

Only allowed ONE contact per OPPORTUNITY for import.

When importing an OPPORTUNITY, the data assigned to the COMPANY or CONTACT assigned to that OPPORTUNITY will be overwritten with the data in the template (i.e. if the template has BLANK address information, any address information for the COMPANY in Prophet will be LOST).

Notes Fields:

xlsx limitation of 2GB per cell

xls limitation 64k per cell.

Long string length like notes (over 256 characters long) will be truncated unless sorted longest string first. To work around, add a new column to calculate the length, sort largest to smallest, and delete the column. Formula is =LEN(RC[-1])

Prophet Import Duplicate Check

While importing contacts, Prophet will check for duplicates based on the following criteria:

First and last names much match

And one of the following must also match:

Email1

Email2

Email3

Business Phone

Prophet Database Importing and Manipulation

The data access library for Excel does “sampling” of the first 10 rows to determine how it will format all rows for the import. This means that if the first 10 rows all have number in them, Prophet will get only values that can be converted into numbers and all text values will be lost. Convert entire column to TEXT type before importing.

Data Import Validation Failures:

If data does not meet validation criteria, the import will still import the invalid data and report the failed record in an error log and a dialogue pop-up will appear during the import process with a link to that error log.

If the overall process fails midstream, records up to the failure point will be imported up to the point of failure. All importing is done on a record-by-record basis.

This is possible, but administrators should be extremely careful about manipulating any data without consulting Avidian first. Any dependence on such updates or reads could break with future versions of Prophet. Care should be taken to isolate 3rd party code from our schema. This can be done using standard approaches such as writing code against newly created SQL views, etc.

Backing out a batch update:

The Prophet import tool imports on a row-by-row basis (non-batch). If controlling data on a batch basis is needed, we recommend using one of the user defined fields as a batchID that can be used to identify the records from a single import.

Step I - Prepare the Import File

The Import wizard will pull data into contacts, companies, and/or opportunities from a specific Excel format.

The Import Template can be found in C:\Program Files\Avidian Technologies\Prophet and the Excel file is named ‘Prophet Import Data Template’. The Excel file is populated with column headers for Contact Name, Company Name, Description, Opportunity Sales Stage, Opportunity Status, Opportunity Description and many more. Your data must be filled out in this specific format. Do not move, delete, hide, etc. any of the columns.

To import Contacts you must at least fill in the First Name in the template.

To import Companies you must at least fill in the Company Name in the template.

To import Opportunities you must at least fill in the Opportunity Sales Status in the template.

If you are filling in the Excel Import Template with data that is to import into an Opportunity Drop Down field, the specific field name you are importing must exactly match the data you have in the Opportunity Drop Down, otherwise the field will be blank in the Opportunity.

For example, if your drop down values for Sales Status in the opportunity are Active, Lost, Won, Cancelled and you try to import the value of ‘Import’ into the Sales Status field, the field will be blank because the value you are trying to import doesn’t match the drop down values for Sales Status.

Preparing the Import Template

As you customize fields in Prophet, such as add fields to the user defined fields in Contact Manager, Company Manager, or rename/customize fields within the opportunity, you can rename the corresponding column on the spreadsheet to match.

For example, take the opportunity below. Some of the fields have been changed from the original version – such as the Title (which is called Opportunity Description on the template), and Item Type (which is called Opportunity Sales Type on the template), etc.

The original template is shown below:

The template that has been renamed to match the current configuration in Prophet is shown here:

Renaming the Opportunity User Defined Fields

In the spreadsheet, columns CJ through FP are all of the user defined labels found in the three user tabs within the Opportunity. An example is the image below.

As you customize your opportunity template, you should also update the import template as you go since all labels are numbered.

Here is the original import template before renaming the fields:

Here is the template that has been renamed to match the current configuration in Prophet:

For these fields, you can only rename the “userDefinedlabel20” portion – leave the rest in there:

Renaming the Contact Manager User Defined Fields

The 20 labels found in Contact Manager User Tab 1 are also available on the spreadsheet – columns BO through CH.

Here is the original import template before renaming the fields:

Here is the template that has been renamed to match the current configuration in Prophet:

Renaming the Company Manager User Defined Fields

The first 12 labels found in Company Manager User Tab 1 are also available on the spreadsheet – columns BC through BN.

Here is the original import template before renaming the fields:

Here is the template that has been renamed to match the current configuration in Prophet:

Step II - Import the Data

Select the arrow next to the Tools button in the Opportunity/Contact/Company Manager Toolbar.

Let’s explore the steps of how to do this and then take a look at the potential problems you might encounter.

First, to export data out of Prophet, you will need to either create a report using the Report Wizard (please refer to that section of this FAQs), or you can also export data from your views in Prophet.

Once you have the data exported out of Prophet (in excel format), you can begin editing that data.

Once you have updated the information, in this case the addresses, you will need to then copy and paste each cell into Prophet’s import template and then import that back into Prophet.

The problem is this: any cell that is left blank in the import template will then replace/overwrite what was currently in Prophet for each contact/company. In this case since we were only looking to update the addresses, we left blank all the other columns like phone number, email address, notes, etc. So for John Haden, the information that was already in Prophet will be replaced by what is on the import template. If the phone number cell is left blank, his phone number will be erased in Prophet. If the notes cell is left blank, we will lose all existing notes that had been tracked thus far.

To avoid the potential loss of data, you would need to build a report using the Report Wizard that includes all fields from Prophet. Since that is not possible, you would need to build one report for your contact data and one report for you company data.

Another issue is regarding opportunities. When you import opportunity data into Prophet, it won’t update or overwrite the existing data. Instead, Prophet will create new opportunities. So if you export all opportunity data out of Prophet, update that information, transfer that into the import template and then import that into Prophet, you will then have duplicate opportunities all with a new created date and modified date.

So while this is technically possible, it also poses problems and a lot of additional work to avoid losing important data.

The data elements Prophet users can share via Prophet depends on what third party application is integrated with Prophet. Although Prophet maintains certain data elements in the Prophet database, other data elements are maintained by Outlook and require a server-based application (such as Exchange) to perform the data sharing function across users. However, some third party applications have limitations which prevent the sharing of certain types data elements. After determining your data-sharing needs, use the following chart to determine the best Prophet integration for your business:

Note that Prophet simply stores a pointer to shared files.

For further information regarding setting up Exchange public folder, Office 365 shared mailboxes, or Sharepoint, please see our related FAQ articles under "Setting up public folders:"

Prophet 6 requires a public folder in order to share information in Prophet amongst Prophet users. SharePoint can be set up to serve as this public folder, but does have limitations.

Prophet uses two fields in Outlook – the "Billing information" and "Mileage" fields to establish links to records. However, SharePoint has a known defect which PREVENTS it from syncing properly with the Outlook "Billing Information" field. This defect will inhibit the search capability of the Opportunity dialog from working properly for discussion (emails), and can also impact other fields using the "Billing Information" field (tasks and calendars). Contacts are NOT affected as they rely exclusively on the "Mileage" Outlook field.

The actions performed by the SharePoint Administrator:

1. Create 4 types of lists in the SharePoint administrator site:

Contacts

Discussion

Calendar

Tasks

2. Add a column for each of the 4 types of lists in SharePoint as follows:

Contacts : Mileage column

Discussion (email) : Billing Information column

Calendar : Billing Information column

Tasks : Billing Information column

The actions performed by each Prophet user:

Each Prophet user will need to link these new SharePoint folders into their own Outlook using what are called "Sharepoint Outlook Connector". This allows Outlook to link a folder with Sharepoint.

For more information on how to create lists, adding columns, and synchronizing SharePoint to Outlook, please refer to Microsoft’s knowledgebase articles:

To the right of your department, click the create button. This will open a dialog for you to specify your SharePoint lists. After selecting your lists from the drop down lists, click apply button to save the changes and then close the Prophet Administrator dialog

Prophet 6 requires a public folder in order to share certain information amongst Prophet users. Microsoft Exchange offers a public folders option which will allow Prophet users to share contact, calendar, task, and email information amongst Prophet users. The following information regarding public folder creations is provided from Microsoft’s website: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/255077

Create a new public folder tree

Start Exchange System Manager.

Locate the Folders container.

Right-click the Folders container, click New, and then click Public Folder Tree.

Choose a name for the public folder tree and type it in the Name field; it is the only required field. The Details tab displays the creation and the modification dates. Additionally, the Details tab lets you enter administrative notes.

Create a new public folder store

Start Exchange System Manager.

Click the Storage Group where the folder store will be stored.

Right-click the storage group to which you want to create the new public store, click New, and then click Public Store. The Properties page for the new store appears.

Choose a name for the public store, and type it in the Name field.

To choose the Associated public folder tree, click Browse, and then select the public folder tree to which you want to apply this public store. Click OK.

Configure the remaining parameters for your new store, and then click OK to save the properties.

After you click OK to save the properties, you receive a dialog box that prompts you whether you want to mount the new store or not. If you click Yes, the store tries to mount. You will be notified if it was successful.

To verify what Public Store is associated with a public folder tree, under the Folders container, right-click the Public Folder Tree, and then click Properties. On the General tab, you see which public stores are associated with this public folder tree.

Create an additional Folders container

A Folders container in an administrative group is required before you can create a new public folders tree within that administrative group. However, with multiple administrative groups in an Exchange 2000 Server and in an Exchange Server 2003 organization, only the First Administrative Group contains a Folders container by default.

To create a Folders container in another administrative group:

Right-click the administrative group that you want to create a Folders container in.

Click New, and then click Public Folders Container.

The Folders container now appears.

NOTE: In Exchange 2000 Server and in Exchange Server 2003, only one Folders container is permitted for each administrative group. After you create a Folders container in an administrative group, if you right-click the administrative group, and then click New, you no longer see the option to create a new public folders container.

Prophet 6 users can share contacts, companies, opportunities, emails, calendars, and tasks in Office 365 by using a “shared mailbox”. Instructions for configuring a shared mailbox environment are as follows:

Double click Avidian.reg. A window will pop up. Click 'Ok' and when the window goes away proceed with the next steps.

Locate register.bat. For Prophet 5 users, this file will reside the same directory as Avidian.reg. For Prophet 6 users, you will need to know if your PC is using an X32 or X64 bit operating system. If your PC is running a X32 bit operating system, navigate to the X32 subfolder. If your PC is running a X64 bit operating system, navigate to the X64 subfolder. Double click the register.bat file. A window will pop up. When the window goes away open outlook and test opportunity manager.

If you are a Prophet 6 customer, please stop here. Prophet 5 users should perform the following two steps:

Locate AVTSQLInstaller.exe and RIGHT CLICK it. Select 'Run As ADMINISTRATOR'. A window will pop up then disappear. This may take a few minutes. Don't worry.

Locate Updatedb.exe and RIGHT CLICK it. Select 'Run As ADMINISTRATOR'. You won't see anything happening but you should wait 4 minutes. Open outlook and test opportunity manager.

Double click Avidian.reg. A window will pop up. Click 'Ok' and when the window goes away proceed with the next steps.

Locate register.bat. For Prophet 5 users, this file will reside the same directory as Avidian.reg. For Prophet 6 users, you will need to know if your PC is using an X32 or X64 bit operating system. If your PC is running a X32 bit operating system, navigate to the X32 subfolder. If your PC is running a X64 bit operating system, navigate to the X64 subfolder. Double click the register.bat file. A window will pop up. When the window goes away open outlook and test opportunity manager.

If you are a Prophet 6 customer, please stop here. Prophet 5 users should perform the following two steps:

Locate AVTSQLInstaller.exe and double click it. A window will pop up then disappear. This may take a few minutes. Don't worry.

Locate Updatedb.exe and double click it. You won't see anything happening but you should wait 4 minutes. Open Outlook and test opportunity manager.